“It is easier to raise strong children then to repair broken men,”

read a simple orange sign that bobbed up and down in front of us in the crowd. The festival energy of a protest is supercharged with goodwill and bright banners. We spent the first few hours milling around the booths and listening to the stylings of heated speakers and metal bands that blasted through a crude stereo system. The thrill of a demonstration is more satisfying than the kicks one gets at fairgrounds and carnival spectacles because, instead of indulging, you are aggravating – stirring up dialogue dust. Social boundaries dissolve way faster in this political cause cloud. Suddenly, instead of turning away, you accept a pamphlet with a smile from the boy with the piercings and the hoodie cut up like a macabre snowflake and strike up a conversation with the grizzled man in the wheelchair who knocks into you in the crowd.

Photo by Ali Giniger (instagram: @alinicoleg)

 

The art studio that I work for showed up armored with aprons that read “Artists for Immigration Reform.” I realized after the fact that maybe only artists know that artists wear aprons. But they made good blank canvases for slogans anyway. We thought we’d highlight the fact that we were artists because it is much harder to get a visa to live in the US if you work in a creative field. The elusive artist visa for this country requires the blood signatures of the entire top echelon of the art world pyramid inscribed on the skin of one of Damien Hirst’s sharks. (This is an exaggeration. But only kind of.)

The paper-mache barrier fence was a nice touch when fist-pumped into the air.

    

My apron had a strike through “HB56,” Alabama’s aggressive anti-immigration law that requires police to determine someone’s legal status if there is any suspicion that that person might be here illegally. It has turned all official interactions into checkpoints and encouraged racial profiling. The goal is “self-deportation,” a concept championed by its originator and Mitt Romney’s unofficial advisor Kris Kobach. And it is effective. People reach a threshold of harassment, exclusion, and fear for their families and they leave. A similar, though not quite as militant, law is in place in Arizona. Check out the podcasts for more:

           This American Life on Alabama 
           NPR on Arizona

  

Photo by Ali Giniger

I had expected immigration reform to be the issue of the day, but it was International Workers Day and the Occupy movement was out in full force. Any group concerned with race and economic inequality came out to play. And then there was the guy in the Captain America costume and the boy in a loincloth dragging a cross around who gave you the impression that this was status quo. It just so happened that today they woke up and got dressed and instead of being ostracized and run off by the police again they were embraced by the pit stained arms of thousands.

 

One group of activists took me by surprise. It was the first time I’d seen artists marching for… artists! Demanding more support from the State and raising awareness that being creative is productive. Signs read “ART IS WORK,” “PAY YOUR INTERNS,” “ART STRIKE,” “ANOTHER ART WORLD IS POSSIBLE.” This shocked me at first. Don’t these people know that they signed up for something inherently useless? Didn’t they get the memo that our country’s puritan roots would never support such frivolous antics? But of course, art has always taken progressive stands and demanded change. It just usually speaks (for good reason) through the medium itself. Either way, we agreed with their sentiments and joined forces with this group, marching alongside them from Union Square deep into the bowels of the Financial District.

Highlights of the day included sighting a monk with a sign that read “Occupy Time” hanging from his back and “Occupy Space” hanging from his front. I also loved watching a women’s group – protesting the neo-conservative, repressive dialogue about women’s health and sexual freedom that has recently been spouting from Republican presidential candidates – melt into a chorus of oohs and aahs at the appearance of a baby in a stroller.

 

Back before the parade began, my street artist friend Felix drew a chalk circle by the Gandhi statue. He tagged it with “good luck” in one section and “bad luck” in another. The “good luck” side was immediately occupied by the most flowery of the ribbon-wearing, barefoot hippies. Signs of “PEACEFUL PROTEST” and “LOVE” sprung up in this place as if it was a goodwill garden. Soon the arbitrary circle was ringed with people and a shrine of peaceful objects began accumulating in its center. People began to meditate and soon the circle was too thick with bodies to see the “bad luck” anymore. These harbingers of peace might have been reluctant to plop themselves down on just any plot of dirty, crowded pavement. But inside the chalk circle they were safe, sanctioned, choreographed -- not by society’s red tape -- but by an outsider, by old magic and old pagan ties. It was a reminder that the central mountain is everywhere. And an illustration of how a few simple lines can start to mean something.